The Range Boss Part 3

"Why, if it ain't Willard!" he said, amazed. "Standin' there, workin' his little old jaw ag'in! An' a-mournin' because I ain't goin' to get my feet wet! Well, shucks. I reckon there ain't nothin' to do now but to get the blacks an' hitch 'em onto the wagon. There's a heap of mud there, of course, but I expect some mud on them right pretty boots of yours wouldn't spoil 'em. I'll lead the blacks over an' you can work your jaw on 'em."

"Thanks," said Masten, sneering, "I've had enough wettings for one day. I have no doubt that you can get the wagon out, by your own crude methods.

I shall not interfere, you may be sure."

He stalked away from the water's edge and ascended the slope to a point several feet in advance of the wagon. Standing there, he looked across the mud at the girl and the others, as though disdaining to exchange further words with the rider.

The latter gazed at him, sidelong, with humorous malice in his glance.

Then he wheeled his pony, rode back toward the wagon, veered when almost to it and forced the pony to climb the slope, thus getting Masten between the rope and the mud. He pulled the rope taut again, swinging wagon tongue and wheels at a sharp angle toward him, drove the spurs into the flanks of the pony and headed it toward the mud level, swinging so that the rope described a quarter circle. It was a time-honored expedient which, he expected, would produce the jerk releasing the wagon.

If he expected the action would produce other results, the rider gave no indication of it. Only the girl, watching him closely and seeing a hard gleam in his eyes, sensed that he was determined to achieve a double result, and she cried out to Masten. The warning came too late. The taut rope, making its wide swing, struck Masten in the small of the back, lifted him, and bore him resistlessly out into the mud level, where he landed, face down, while the wagon, released, swished past him on its way to freedom.

The rider took the wagon far up the sloping trail before he brought it to a halt. Then, swinging it sideways so that it would not roll back into the mud, he turned and looked back at Masten. The latter had got to his feet, mud-bespattered, furious.

The rider looked from Masten to the girl, his expression one of hypocritical gravity. The girl's face was flushed with indignation over the affront offered her friend. She had punished him for his jealousy, she had taken her part in mildly ridiculing him. But it was plain to the rider when he turned and saw her face, that she resented the indignity she had just witnessed. She was rigid; her hands were clenched, her arms stiff at her sides; her voice was icy, even, though husky with suppressed pa.s.sion.

"I suppose I must thank you for getting the wagon out," she said. "But that--that despicable trick--" Her self-control deserted her. "I wish I were a man; you would not go unpunished!"

There was contrition in his eyes. For an infinitesimal s.p.a.ce he regretted the deed, and his active mind was already framing an excuse. And then out of the tail of his eye he saw Uncle Jepson winking violent applause at him, and a broad grin suffused his face. He made some effort to suppress it, but deepening wrinkles around his eyes contradicted the gravity of his lips.

"Why, I wasn't reckonin' to hurt him, ma'am," he said. "You see, he was right in the way, an' I reckon I was feelin' a bit wild right at that minute, an'--" His gaze went to Masten, who was sc.r.a.ping mud from his garments with a small flat stone. The rider's eyes grew wide; more wrinkles appeared around them.

"Why, I've spoiled his white s.h.i.+rt," he said as though speaking to himself, his voice freighted with awe. And then, as Masten shook a threatening fist at him, he suddenly yielded to the mirth that was consuming him and he bowed his head.

It was Uncle Jepson's warning shout that impelled him to raise his head.

He saw Masten coming toward him, clawing at the foolish holster at his waist, his eyes flas.h.i.+ng murder, his teeth bared in a snarl.

"You, Patches!" said the rider, his voice coming with a cold, quick snap.

And the piebald pony, his muscles and thews alive with energy in an instant, lunged in answer to the quick knee-press, through the mud, straight at Masten.

So it was a grim and formidable figure that Masten looked up at before he could get his weapon out of his holster. The lean face of the rider was close to his own, the rider's eyes were steady, blue, and so cold that they made Masten forget the chill in the air. And one of the heavy pistols that the rider carried was close to Masten's head, its big muzzle gaping forebodingly at him, and the rider's voice, as he leaned from the saddle, came tense and low. The girl could not hear:

"Listen to this gospel, you mud-wallowin' swine," he said. "This is a man's country, an' you play a man's game or you lose out so quick it'll make you dizzy! You been playin' kid all through this deal. You're grumblin' an' whinin' ever since I set eyes on you from the edge of the mesa, there. That little girl thinks you're all wool an' a yard wide. You come across, clean--you hear me! You shape up to man's size or I'll hunt you up an' tear the gizzard out of you! You jam that there cap-shooter back where it belongs or I'll take it away from you an' make you eat it!

You hear me!"

The pistol went back; Masten's face was ashen beneath the mud on it.

"Now grin, you sufferin' shorthorn!" came the rider's voice again, low as before. "Grin like you'd just discovered that I'm your rich uncle come from Frisco with a platter full of gold nuggets which I'm set on you spendin' for white s.h.i.+rts. Grin, or I'll salivate you!"

It was a grin that wreathed Masten's lips--a shallow, forced one. But it sufficed for the rider. He sat erect, his six-shooter disappearing magically, and the smile on his face when he looked at the girl, had genuine mirth in it.

"I've apologized to Willard, ma'am," he said. "We ain't goin' to be cross to each other no more. I reckon you c'n forgive me, now, ma'am. I sure didn't think of bein' mean."

The girl looked doubtfully at Masten, but because of the mud on his face could see no expression.

"Well, I'm glad of that," she said, reddening with embarra.s.sment. "I certainly would not like to think that anyone who had been so accommodating as you could be so mean as to deliberately upset anyone in the mud." She looked downward. "I'm sorry I spoke to you as I did," she added.

"Why, I'm sorry too, ma'am," he said gravely. He urged his pony through the mud and brought it to a halt beside her. "If you'd shake hands on that, ma'am, I'd be mighty tickled."

Her hand went out to him. He took it and pressed it warmly, looking at it, marveling at it, for the glove on it could not conceal its shapeliness or its smallness. He dropped it presently, and taking off his hat, bowed to her.

"Thank you, ma'am," he said; "I'll be seein' you ag'in some time. I hope you'll like it here."

"I am sure I shall."

He grinned and turned away. Her voice halted him.

"May I know who has been so kind to us in our trouble?"

He reddened to the roots of his hair, but faced her.

"Why, I reckon you'll know, ma'am. I'm King Randerson, foreman of the Diamond H, up the crick a ways. That is," he added, his blush deepening, "I was christened 'King.' But a while ago a dago professor who stayed overnight at the Diamond H tipped the boys off that 'King' was Rex in Latin lingo. An' so it's been Rex Randerson since then, though mostly they write it '_W-r-e-c-k-s_.' There's no accountin' for notions hereabouts, ma'am."

"Well, I should think not!" said the lady, making mental note of the blueness of his eyes. "But I am sure the boys make a mistake in spelling your name. Judging from your recent actions it should be spelled '_R-e-c-k-l-e-s-s_.' Anyway, we thank you."

"The same to you, ma'am. So long."

He flashed a smile at Aunt Martha; it broadened as he met Uncle Jepson's eyes; it turned to a grin of derision as he looked at Masten. And then he was splas.h.i.+ng his pony across the river.

They watched him as he rode up the slope on the opposite side; they held their breath as pony and rider climbed the steeper slope to the mesa.

They saw him halt when he reached the mesa, saw him wave his hat to them.

But they did not see him halt the pony after he had ridden a little way, and kiss the palm of the hand that had held hers.

CHAPTER III

AT THE FLYING W

It fell to Uncle Jepson to hitch the blacks to the buckboard--in a frigid silence Masten had found his trunk, opened it and drawn out some very necessary dry clothing; then marching behind a thick clump of alder, he proceeded to make the change. After this he climbed down to the river and washed the mud from visible portions of his body. Then he returned to the buckboard, to find the others waiting for him. In a strained silence he climbed up to the seat beside Ruth, took up the reins, and sent the blacks forward.

It was ten miles to the Flying W ranchhouse, and during the ride the silence was broken only once. That was when, at about the fifth mile, Ruth placed a hand on Masten's arm and smiled at him.

"I really think Mr. Randerson _was_ sorry that he upset you in the mud, Willard," she said gently. "I don't think he did it to be mean. And it was so manly of him to apologize to you." She laughed, thinking that time had already removed the sting. "And you really _did_ look funny, Willard, with the mud all over you. I--I could have laughed, myself, if I hadn't felt so indignant."

"I'll thank you to not refer to it again, Ruth," he said crossly.

She flushed and looked straight ahead of her at the unfolding vistas that their pa.s.sage revealed: at the undulating plains, green with bunch-gra.s.s that the rain of the night before had washed and reinvigorated; into gullies where weeds grew thick; peering into arroyos--visible memories of washouts and cloudbursts; glimpsing barrancas as they flashed by; wondering at the depth of draws through which the trail led; s.h.i.+vering at the cacti--a brilliant green after the rain--for somehow they seemed to symbolize the spirit of the country--they looked so grim, hardy, and mysterious with their ugly thorns that seemed to threaten and mock. She shrank, too, when the buckboard pa.s.sed the skeleton of a steer, its bleached bones ghastly in the sunlight, but she smiled when she saw a sea of soap-weed with yellow blossoms already unfolding, and she looked long at a mile-wide section of mesquite, dark and inviting in the distance.

She saw a rattler cross the trail in front of the buckboard and draw its loathsome length into a coil at the base of some crabbed yucca, and thereafter she made grimaces at each of the ugly plants they pa.s.sed. It was new to her, and wonderful. Everything, weird or ugly, possessed a strange fascination for her, and when they lurched over the crest of a hill and she saw, looming somberly in the distance in front of her, a great cottonwood grove, with some mountains behind it, their peaks gleaming in the s.h.i.+mmering sunlight, thrusting above some fleecy white clouds against a background of deep-blue sky, her eyes glistened and she sat very erect, thrilled. It was in such a country that she had longed to live all the days of her life.

Somehow, it gave her a different viewpoint. The man who had accommodated them back at the river seemed to fit very well here. The spirit of the young, unfettered country was in his eyes, in his serene manner; he was as hardy and rugged as this land from which he had sprung.

When the buckboard came to a halt in the Flying W ranchhouse yard, Ruth Harkness' first emotion was one of a great happiness that the Harknesses had always been thrifty and neat, and also that Uncle William had persisted in these habits. She had greatly feared, for during the last day of her ride on the train she had pa.s.sed many ranchhouses and she had been appalled and depressed by the dilapidated appearance of their exteriors, and by the general atmosphere of disorder and s.h.i.+ftlessness that seemed to surround them. So many of them had reminded her of the dwelling places of careless farmers on her own familiar countryside, and she had a.s.sured herself that if the Flying W were anything like those others she would immediately try to find a buyer, much as she wished to stay.

But the first glance at the Flying W convinced her that her fears had been groundless. The ranchhouse was a big two-story structure built of heavy timber, with porches in front and rear, and wide cornices, all painted white and set on a solid foundation of stone. It looked s.p.a.cious and comfortable. The other buildings--stables, bunkhouse, messhouse, blacksmith shop, and several others--did not discredit the ranchhouse.

They all were in good repair. She had already noted that the fences were well kept; she had seen chickens and pigs, flowers and a small garden; and behind the stable, in an enclosure of barbed wire, she had observed some cows--milkers, she was certain.